Tag: Masqueparade

Can anyone stop the runaway train that is Essential Quality? Six others try derailing the 4/5 favorite in Saturday's Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga. (Image: Joe Labozzetta/Coglianese Photos/NYRA)

The Travers: Can Anyone Catch History-Making Essential Quality?

- 5 min read

Brad Cox and Essential Quality are simultaneously chasing Travers Stakes history and running from it at the same time. This counterintuitive feat illustrates Cox’s training prowess, Essential Quality’s running prowess, and the Travers’ recent prowess as a destroyer of favorites. Cox, who trains the prohibitive 4/5 favorite for Saturday’s headline […]

Essential Quality nipped Keepmeinmind to win last month's Grade 2 Jim Dandy at Saratoga. The two tangle again in Saturday's Travers Stakes, one of six Grade 1s on Saratoga's Saturday card. (Image: Susie Raisher/NYRA Photo)

Saturday at Saratoga: One of Racing’s Biggest Days of 2021

- 3 min read

The names of those racing on Saturday’s Travers Day at Saratoga sound like a Thoroughbred all-star team: Essential Quality, Gamine, Letruska, Tribhuvan, Jackie’s Warrior, Life Is Good, Whitmore, Swiss Skydiver. All of them – and others you may have heard of – are set to run in one of Saratoga’s […]

Reigning Champion Turf Male Channel Maker will try giving trainer Bill Mott his record-setting fifth Bowling Green title in this week's finale of the Cross Country Pick 5. (Image: Janet Garaguso/NYRA Photo)

Cross Country Pick 5 Takes to the Stakes This Week

- 3 min read

Four stakes races up and down the graded-stakes ladder highlight this week’s New York Racing Association Cross Country Pick 5. The horizontal exotic once again brings you races from Monmouth Park, Saratoga, and Canada’s Woodbine. The minimum bet for the three-track, five-race wager is 50 cents. The Cross Country Pick […]

Essential Quality hasn't raced since beating Hot Rod Charlie in the June 5 Belmont Stakes. He is the prohibitive favorite to win his fourth graded stakes race of 2021: the Grade 2 Jim Dandy at Saratoga. (Image: Adam Coglianese/NYRA)

Essential Quality Looks Like a Real Jim Dandy Favorite Here

- 4 min read

Proving not all graded stakes winners are viewed equally, Saturday’s Grade 2 Jim Dandy at Saratoga features five graded stakes winners in the six-horse field. None of them are viewed through the prism of expectations as Essential Quality. The Belmont Stakes champion comes in as the 1/2 favorite in the […]

Masqueparade (10) held off King Fury to win the Grade 3 Ohio Derby in June. Can the talented, but untested colt, make the next leap in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes? (Image: JJ Zamaiko Photography)

Talented, Barely Tested Masqueparade Ready for His Jim Dandy Close-Up

- 3 min read

Masqueparade is a graded-stakes winner who impressively captured his last three races, turned away two Kentucky Derby horses, and who has more than a hint of the flavor du jour about him. And yet, trainer Al Stall Jr. has no illusions about what awaits his Ohio Derby winner in Saturday’s […]

Masqueparade led his last parade by nearly 12 lengths. He is an 8/1 morning-line selection to win Saturday's Grade 3 Ohio Derby. (Image: Coady Photography)

Ohio Derby Brings Back Some Familiar Names, Along With A Newcomer

- 4 min read

Unlike last year, there are no Kentucky Derby qualifying points available in this year’s Grade 3 Ohio Derby. No mulling over potential Derby dark horses coming out of what is usually a C-level field of 3-year-olds anyway. No. Instead, we have one Derby and Preakness alum, one would-be Derby alum, […]